Tag Archives: design

The design of the spectacle

When you have a pair of glasses you like, why can’t you keep them? The optical-industrial complex has a say in the matter. Frame styles change so swiftly that getting a new pair of glasses means finding a new you. … Continue reading

Posted in Art and design, Humor | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Better ideas not worse, pls!

Yesterday I sent in my monthly blog post for Traditional Building magazine, and today I’m thinking, well, I left out some really important stuff. My TB post was a reply to TB’s Forum in which the architectural historian Paul A. … Continue reading

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RISD rides to 195 rescue

Governor Raimondo has invited the Rhode Island School of Design to help bring more innovation to the I-195 corridor. She has also hired the state’s first chief innovation officer, former CIA wonk Richard Culatta, who will work in splendid isolation … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Providence, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fogarty building never liked

Now that it seems as if the Fogarty Building will finally come down, the Brutalist government structure next to the Providence Journal Building downtown was treated to a love-fest in the Journal today. “Time’s Up” reads the headline of reporter … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Providence, Providence Journal, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

AIA artist exposes mods

  Above on this page, Chicago illustrator Lauren Nassef reinterprets everyday objects that have become symbolic and, rendered as speculative buildings, could be iconic. Please don’t sue her. The passage appears at the end of an article in Architect, the … Continue reading

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Google belly flops logo test

Andres Duany asked TradArch listers why they “hate” Google’s new logo, assuming that most list members consider it to have been a bad move. I do not hate it. A logo change is not worthy of hatred. I dislike it, … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Latest projects in Providence

Above are two maps of Providence before and after the relocation of Route 195, opening up about 40 acres for development between downtown and the Jewelry District. Toward the top of the map you can see the Providence River curve … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Development, Landscape Architecture, Preservation, Providence, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Salingaros does Metropolis

Over the past few days, Nikos Salingaros has three new essays in Metropolis, the magazine of architecture, design and culture. His writing, with frequent literary partner Michael Mehaffy, has appeared in Metropolis before. These latest essays track his research and … Continue reading

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Kingsley Amis bags a statue

The late Kingsley Amis wrote The Old Devils (1988) about a community of old art farts in Wales when one of their old school chums, “media Welshman” Alun Weaver, decides to end his long successful literary career in London and … Continue reading

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“Up from Ugliness” at NYT

Here is what I wrote about a New York Times column before learning it was published not recently but in 2011. Sigh. Well, the points do remain valid. * * * Ross Douthat, a regular columnist at the New York … Continue reading

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